A DAY when April willows fringed the pool
Of fifty years ago with freshening gold,
Myself came trudging from the country school
With my tall grandsire of the wars of old;
His peaceful jack-knife trimmed a ravished shoot,

Nicked deep the green and hollowed out the white,
To fashion for the child a willow flute,
His age exulting in the shrill delight;
“For so,” he said, “my grandsire made
The sweetest whistles ever blew,

When I and he were you and me,
And all the world was new.”

To-day in mine a grandchild’s balmy hand
Eagerly thrills as toward the pool we go,
He confident that never sea nor land

Wotted of wonders more than grandsires know;
They sail all seas, explore all giants’ caves,
Play wolves and bears, and panthers worse by far,
Are scalped complacently as Indian braves,
And little boys their favored comrades are;

By grandpa’s lore, well learned of yore,
I hold the rank I most esteem
Of dear and wise in Billy’s eyes,
And boast the pomp supreme.

Now, blade unclasped, I skirt the marge to choose

One withe from all the willow’s greening throng,
The imperfect branches tacitly refuse,
To clip at last the wand without a prong;
Its knots I scan, the smoothest reach to find,
Cut true around the tender bark a ring,

Bevel the end, and artful tip the rind,
Draw out the pith, and shape the chambered thing
Exactly so as long ago,
In April weather sweet as this,
My grandsire did when he would bid

A whistle for a kiss.

Now Billy snuggles palm again in mine,
“Over the hills,” he blows, “and far away.”
O pipe of Arcady, how clear and fine
Thy single note salutes the yearning day!

The breeze in branches bare, the whistling wing,
The subtle-bubbling frogs, the bluebird’s call,
The quivering sounds of ever-piercing spring,
That one thin willow note attunes them all;
And, far and near at once, I hear

The sweetest whistle ever blew,
Lilting again the olden strain,
And all the world is new.